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All politicians lie

Since July, John McCain and his campaign have made 11 political claims that are barely true, eight that are categorically false, and three that you’d have to call pants-on-fire lies—a total of 22 clearly deceptive statements (many of them made repeatedly in ads and stump speeches). Barack Obama and Joe Biden, meanwhile, have put out eight bare truths, four untruths, and zero pants-on-fire lies—12 false claims. These stats and categories come from PolitiFact, but the story looks pretty much the same if you count up fabrications documented by FactCheck.org or the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, the other truth-squad operations working the race: During the past two and a half months, McCain has lied more often and more outrageously than Obama. (Click here for a few caveats in this analysis.)

Yet Obama continues to run a strategy of adjusting his message as fact checkers discover his truth- bending statements. Why? If there is no consequence from lying? In fact, why not simply lie more? Does taking the, ahem, high ground really serve Obama’s best interests? What’s the point of running a clean — I mean, cleaner, or perhaps less dirty campaign, if it does not win you the race? After all you can’t govern, if you don’t win?

Frankly, I’m ready to see Obama and Biden really take of the gloves and start really smacking around that old fogey and his bitch mistress. But that’s just me.